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To assess the impacts of regulations and laws enhancing the management of e-waste in China, hair samples of local residents and dismantling workers in a former e-waste area in 2016 and 2019, five and eight years after the implementation of legislation and regulations in this area since 2011, respectively. The temporal changes in levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) in the hair samples were investigated. Besides, the levels of these organic contaminants in hair samples collected from the same area in 2009, 2011, and 2015 reported in previous studies were used as comparison. The highest median levels of Σ9PCBs (719 ng/g), Σ3Penta-BDEs (16.1 ng/g), and Σ3Octa-BDEs (8.46 ng/g) in hair were found in 2011, with a significant decrease trend was observed from 2011 to 2019 (p

Chronic exposure to low levels of heavy metals threatens human health. However, few studies evaluated the health effects and spatial distributions of chronic exposure to heavy metals in metropolitan residents throughout mainland China using unified sampling methods and evaluation indicators at the national level. Here, the concentrations and spatial distributions of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Sb, Pb, and Hg) in the hair of 1202 metropolitan residents from mainland China were analyzed, and differences in age and sex were evaluated. Most target metals exhibited higher concentrations in the hair of residents from South Central China. Generally, male hair had higher As and Se concentrations, whereas female hair had higher Cd and Pb levels (p < 0.05). A significant pairwise correlation existed between most metals in hair, especially Cd-Pb (r = 0.638, p < 0.05). The Se/heavy metal molar ratio is used as an indicator to assess the detoxification ability. The results demonstrated that protecting metropolitan residents in South Central China from heavy metals in their daily life is crucial, particularly for Hg, Pb, and Cr with Se/(Hg, Pb, or Cr) molar ratios < 1. This is the first study to comprehensively consider the antagonistic effects of Se and heavy metals using the molar ratio of Se/heavy metals to evaluate health implications and propose health management policies for metropolitan residents in China.

Human hair has been identified as a non-invasive alternative matrix for assessing the human exposure to specific organic contaminants. In the present study, a solvent-saving analytical method for the simultaneous determination of 8 polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), 3 hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDDs), 12 phosphorus flame retardants (PFRs), and 4 emerging PFRs (ePFRs) has been developed and validated for the first time. Hair sample preparation protocols include precleaning with Milli-Q water, digestion with HNO3/H2O2 (1:1, v/v), liquid-liquid extraction with hexane:dichloromethane (4:1, v/v), and fractionation and cleanup on a Florisil cartridge. The method was validated by using two levels of spiked hair samples of 3 replicates for each spiking group. Limits of quantification (LOQs) were 0.12-22.4 ng/g for all analytes, average values of accuracies were ranging between 88 and 115%, 82-117%, 81-128%, and 81-95% for PBDEs, HBCDDs, PFRs, and ePFRs, respectively; and precision was also acceptable (RSD

Antibiotic contamination attracts growing concerns because of their deleterious effects on the ecosystem and human health. In this study, 43 antibiotics in wastewater from a variety of sources and water of the Yangtze River in Chongqing City in western China were measured. Thirty compounds were detected, and their concentrations were highest in leachates from the municipal solid waste treatment facilities (landfills and incineration plants) with total concentrations of 3584–57,106 ng/L. The total concentrations in influents of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) were comparable (401–7994 ng/L versus 640–8945 ng/L). The concentrations in raw sewage from swine farms (with a total of 10,219–39,195 ng/L) and poultry farms (1419–36,027 ng/L) were noticeably higher than those from other farms (54.0–5516 ng/L). Fluoroquinolones were the dominant antibiotics contributing over 50% in all the sources, and sulfonamides and imidazole fungicides contributed 3.2–34%, whereas tetracyclines and macrolides had minor contributions. The overall antibiotic removal rates were highest in solid waste treatment facilities (88% on average), comparable between municipal and industrial WWTPs (61%), and lowest in animal farms (39%). The mass loads to the investigated municipal WWTPs via influent wastewater ranged from 7.80 to 1531 kg/year (53.2–2482 μg/day per capital). The influent mass loads to the industrial WWTPs and farms were 3.7–50 kg/year and 0.9–5437 g/year, respectively. We estimated that the mass inventories of antibiotics from these sources to the environment via effluent discharges were approximately 2044 kg for municipal WWTPs, 61 kg for industrial WWTPs, and 34 kg for animal farms in the whole city. Antibiotic concentrations in the Yangtze River water were substantially low (